Hugh Jackman denies breaking wrestler's jaw

Hugh Jackman admits that he punched a professional wrestler with all of his might - but disputes claims that he broke his jaw.

The Australian actor attended a WWE wrestling match on September 19 to promote his upcoming boxing film Real Steel. A guest of honour, Jackman was able to hang out in wrestler Zack Ryder's corner while the tournament took place.

At one point during the fight, Jackman travelled over to Dolph Ziggler's corner, Ryder's opponent. Jackman and Ziggler exchanged words and Ziggler received a clean punch to the jaw by the actor quickly thereafter.

"I hit him," Jackman told Entertainment Weekly.

"[Dolph] said, 'Hit me as hard as you can.' So I hit him pretty hard. And you can see it in my eyes. I watched [the clip] again, and you can see me going 'Uh oh' a little. I'm acting like, 'Yeah!' but I'm really like, 'S***, I kinda really clocked him in the jaw'."

Jackman insists that he didn't mean to clock Ziggler with so much force. Ziggler tweeted soon after the incident with claims that Jackman put a hairline fracture in his jaw.

"It was scripted that I would go for that punch," Jackman explained.

"But just before we went on, Dolph was yelling at me, 'You hit me man! Just f***ing hit me!' During rehearsal I said, 'I'd like to do it, but I've spent 20 years pulling punches, trying not to hit. Trying to make it look real, but not really hit.'

"He said, 'There's no way. There's cameras everywhere, there's crowd everywhere, there's no way we can 'whiff it', as they call it'."

Jackman is convinced that Ziggler may be embellishing the extent of his injury a little bit.

"The next day I read he really broke his jaw and I wasn't surprised - but I don't think he did," Jackman said.

"He's prone to exaggeration - which is why I hit him! Nah, just kidding!"